author
John L. (John Louis) Spivak
1897–1981
A fearless investigative reporter, he wrote with urgency about labor struggles, racism, prison abuse, and the rise of fascism in the United States and Europe. His most influential work came in the 1920s and 1930s, when he built a reputation for hard-hitting, politically committed journalism.
1 Audiobook
Secret armies : the new technique of Nazi warfare
by John L. (John Louis) Spivak
About the author
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1897, John L. Spivak became an American journalist and author known for muckraking reporting and outspoken left-wing politics. Reliable biographical sources describe him as a socialist and later a communist writer whose work focused on the lives of working people, racial injustice, and the threat of fascism and antisemitism.
Spivak wrote for publications including the Daily Worker, New Masses, Ken, and The Call. Archives and reference sources also note the impact of his investigations into prison conditions in Georgia and his reporting on extremist movements, subjects that made him one of the more combative journalistic voices of his era.
Much of his best-known writing dates from the 1920s through the 1940s. During the 1950s and 1960s he lived under a pseudonym for a time, later re-emerging to publish his autobiography before his death in 1981.